WINEDALE - Hello again from the front porch of the old country house here in Washington County, on a sweetheart of a bright, cool day.

I'm pleased to be seated for a while because I've been out walking over the property, on a treasure hunt, and I need to take a break.

My 90-year-old legs lie to me sometimes. I'll walk out the front door and they'll be feeling like they could hike all the way to town and back. But I won't get more than a quarter of a mile from the house before I'll be looking for a stump to sit down and rest on.

The treasure hunt? Well, my blog caused me to go on that hunt.

Like a good many other Chronicle columnists, I run a blog, or maybe I should say it runs me. This blog allows people to fire up their computers and send in comments about whatever they yearn to say. Truth is, I started this blog a few years ago because somebody convinced me that if I worked it right, a blog could make me a lot of money.

So far it has not made me a nickel, but it has become a habit and I'm afraid I'd miss those digital friends if I quit, so I keep on blogging.

Sometimes the regular commenters will get to swapping posts about cooking, or fishing, or books, and I'll find myself being led down the path of whatever they're posting about.

Lately they got off on treasure hunting, and metal detectors, and finding curious and even valuable objects buried in remote places. This got me thinking about the metal detector Old Friend Morgan and I bought years ago when we were going south every March to meet spring.

O.F. had what he called a new slant on an ancient hidden-treasure story, on a ranch down in the South Texas Brush Country. He even had a map showing how to reach the treasure. Or at least how to get close to the spot.

So we bought a metal detector. I'm being nice, saying that we bought it. O.F. suggested I put the cost on my credit card, and then I could get my money back on my expense account.

I did have an expense account, but it wasn't the free-wheeling kind that would pay for a $400 metal detector to hunt for a treasure that very likely doesn't even exist.

Did we find the treasure? No. In fact, we didn't get very far into the ranch due to a couple of unfriendly fence riders carrying Winchesters.

But I think I've already told you about that adventure.

I mention it now to explain why I have a Tesoro metal detector hanging in the little barn here at Winedale.

Not long after we bought this place, I met a fellow who said he lived on down the road a ways. He had an interest in treasure hunting, and he told me about the country store that once stood on this property, and the mysterious mound of earth nearby.

He said that store site and the mound needed to be investigated with a good metal detector. I asked why and he said he'd heard interesting things about the site. I asked what kind of interesting things. He said very interesting things.

He wanted to come back with a detector when the weather wasn't too hot and we wouldn't mind doing some digging.

He didn't come back, at least not when we were here, and I never saw him again. Which didn't surprise me. I've met other treasure hunters who talked that way, as if they knew things they didn't want to tell.

Even so, I've always wondered what a metal detector might show about the place where the store was. And the mound, too, which seemed even more interesting.

So when the posters on my blog began swapping notes about treasure hunting, I got the Tesoro down and dusted it off and put in new batteries and tuned it up the best I could, and I went treasure hunting.

The weather was just right. Cool and sunny, and we've had some rain lately that wasn't enough to put a dent in the drought, but it did soften the ground enough to make digging easier.

Not that I did any digging. I skimmed that detector over every square foot of the store site. I worked it over every spot on this place that I thought might be hiding anything interesting, or even boring.

Including the mound, which I think was pushed up by a bulldozer during an early land-clearing job. The mound is now full of holes occupied by armadillos.

That detector did not sing one note that made me want to dig a hole 6 inches deep.

Just outside the yard fence where we park the cars, I did find a 1985 two-bit piece. I think that was a coin I'd dropped when I was fishing in a pocket for the keys to my pickup.